Optimism- Roadblock to success

‘You should be always optimistic ‘ ‘There is no space for pessimism in Successful people’ ‘Be Positive’, how many times and how many people have said these?? We are taught to be optimistic to live a happy life but I am sure there is not a single person in this world became successful because of their optimism. I feel being optimistic makes you blindly believe in something which takes you away from reality.

Being positive all the time is the most negative feeling

I have a friend. He worked for almost 2 decades in a company. He decided to start something of his own in a similar stream. Of course, working for 2 decades helped him create some wealth to run the family. Now since close to 4 years have passed in his firm but there is no sign of profit or even break-even. Somewhere I know he won’t be able to succeed because that zeal is missing. Not undermining him but he has not understood that starting something of your own does not mean you are your own boss. I told him that you should really think if you should continue and his answer was ‘I have spent so much of time and I am damn sure this will work someday’ I feel his optimism is not allowing him to see right picture. Remember there is nothing wrong in saying ‘Yes, It did not work’ but somewhere he has this feeling that if he closes down now, what will people talk about him?

‘Never Give Up’ ‘Do or Die’ or ‘Fake it till you make it’, haven’t we all heard of this? All of these sounds very inspiring when someone has reached at a certain point of success, not before that. All of these seems hoax when someone is trying to build. Rather it creates more pressure on someone who is trying to build something. They start self-doubting that they don’t have it in them to do it. There is a time when this person may want to quit because he knows deep down inside that it is not going to work. He/she wants to leave it before they are completely broke. But then such dialogues and what people may say behind them, makes them think let me continue for some more time.

Making peace with yourself is not quitting, it is moving ahead

It’s just not about the Startup thing or business. The stock market is one of the best examples to understand how fake optimism makes people blind towards reality. I have a friend who invested in the stock at a price range of 350. The price dropped down to 200. He purchased more shares to average its cost (Everyone who has invested ever in the stock market will relate with this). For once the share did reach his cost level and he tried to sell but within seconds price started falling. In next week price reached 170. He said ‘Apna price aayega’. But this ‘price’ was never to come. Straight down, the price went all the way to Rs 70. He thought being optimistic will help in the long term but he was being foolish. He was mixing optimism with the technical knowledge required to assess. Optimism made him blind towards reality and stop at the right point of time.

Optimism cannot be a substitution for knowledge or hard work

Tinder, the millennial way of dating and meeting. There are two types of optimistic people. The very first who feel they will find their soul mate here. One in million may but accept it, this is not matchmaking app. The optimism that the other person is looking for a serious relationship is idiotic, it may turn out eventually is a different thing. Then there are people who are average looking people swiping on someone very good looking. Here’s the reality guys you are just not overly optimistic but hypocrites as well. Firstly you won’t swipe on someone average looking person and expect the others to do that. This is an evident example of unrealistic optimism. Yeah, one may find someone based on their nature and behavior but that’s not gonna happen on tinder. It’s the app which looks at the picture, not you. Ask yourself how many bios you have read. The optimism level on tinder is more than those who believe in ‘aache din’

‘Aache din’ se yaad aaya, politician has been using optimism cards since years. Optimism is something everyone loves. People trust optimism for change and success. In politics, why do you think optimistic lines like ‘Aache din aane wale hai’, ‘Make America Great Again’ works? Because people want to hear good things. Sometimes they know at a ground level nothing is happening but this optimistic propaganda lets you believe everything is going great

I feel as a society we are wrong in the way we are pushing entrepreneurs, students, and children. For example, The only story people see is the funding amount, lavish office, some crazy customer services. We don’t see that if you want to do exactly that, just starting a website and being optimistic is not enough. One should not be 100% sure about his/her idea. Having doubts lets you explore other opportunities, having doubts makes you do more efforts, having doubts makes you do the same thing in a different manner, having doubts lets you experiment with things.

I am not advocating to decide quickly to start and close anything. For example, some business may take 5 years to pick up and it is completely fine to not give up on these but when deep down you know that things ain’t working and you are either short on knowledge, resource or idea, you should be brave enough to take a decision. One, not being optimistic does not mean he has to be negative about everything but he has to be realistic and logical about what he/ she is doing.

Finally, let me come to the main reason why I wrote this blog. Those who are sending this motivational quote every day, sharing it on social media, keeping it as WhatsApp status, listen no one is really reading it. Your optimism that others are motivated is again stupid, so stop making fool of yourself!!!

Let me end with the quote I came across, can’t be a better quote to end with

p.s. I am damn optimistic that this post will go viral, I will get thousands of likes and hundreds of comments